


Words hung above

by HerotheHardWay



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Michael Burnham needs a hug and a cuddle, Sharing a Bed, and they were ROOMMATES, michael POV, post-3x03 People of Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerotheHardWay/pseuds/HerotheHardWay
Summary: Michael has spent a year mourning her crew, and then letting them go. There was one person, though she never could. Now she just needs to find out where she is supposed to sleep on her first night back on the Enterprise.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Sylvia Tilly
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	Words hung above

It’s late evening, after spending a solid two hours in the lounge talking with crewmates, that Michael realizes that she does not know where she will be sleeping tonight. She looks around at everyone in the room, people she knows and who at the same time feel unfamiliar and alien, and feels...lost. Alone.

She would ask Tilly, but Tilly is also the last person she wants to ask, and if she can just find someone who can tell her where her quarters are it’ll be fine, she can take it, she’ll be fine wherever they put her—

“You look like you’re looking for someone,” says the one person Michael has been tuned into since she saw a blur of red hair running towards her when she materialized.

And the rush of—what is it? Relief? Anxiety? All of the above? Whatever it is, it crashes over Michael like a tidal wave and it takes her a moment for her eyes to focus on Tilly.

Sylvia Tilly. The woman who has haunted her dreams for a year, who she has desperately wanted to talk to and simultaneously been scared stiff of facing, since her communicator crackled to life. The woman whose words are still echoing in her ears, hours later.  _ You let us go, didn’t you? _

And Michael had no idea what to say to that. Because she  _ had _ , Tilly is right about that. Tilly knows her too well, despite what she said. But letting go of the expectation of ever seeing her crew again, of learning to become a Michael Burnham whose identity was more than Starfleet...it’s different than letting go of your  _ love _ for those people.

Because Michael had  _ mourned _ her crew, even as she’d never stopped trying to contact them. She’d faced the fact that she had no idea whether she’d ever see them again. Book had helped her, helped her work through the messiness of it.

But the one person that had reappeared in her dreams, night after night, has blue-grey eyes and wild red hair and a smile that lights up a room, and is waiting for Michael to respond, in front of her, right now.

Michael shakes herself out of her reverie, and wonders for a millisecond how long it’s been since Tilly spoke. She clears her throat. “...I am, actually.” And then she pauses, unsure how to continue. “Do you...what quarters have I been assigned to? I assume I have been by now?”

And the light dulls a little in Tilly’s eyes a fraction, but her smile doesn’t waver. “With me, of course!” And then, more uncertainly, all in a rush, “If that’s okay with you, I mean. I didn’t know—if you want to have your own quarters, which, I mean of course you can, you’re a  _ commander _ , I can find you a room—”

“ _ Tilly _ ,” Michael cuts her anxious babbling off before Tilly can work herself up even further. “That sounds perfect.”

And Tilly’s shoulders, which Michael had not noticed were tense, relax, and her smile softens into something a little less manic and a little more natural, and she says, “Okay. Okay then. Um. I guess you don’t need instructions on how to get there, I mean,” she laughs, “it’s just the same room we had before, and um, all your stuff is still there, it’s—it hasn’t been that long for us!”

Michael yawns, and says, “Are you ready to turn in? I know I could use some sleep after today.” Partially she says it because she really  _ is _ tired after the crazy stunt she and Book pulled, and the tension filled unfamiliar Earth people, and everything. But also because she doesn’t want Tilly to think she’s anything except relieved that tonight she’ll be falling asleep in a room with another human being breathing in it.

Tilly nods and stifles her own yawn. “Yeah. I’m exhausted.”

So Tilly leads the way out of the lounge and down the hall to the turbolift that will take them to their floor.

Michael follows, and wonders if she is really capable of doing anything else. It’s awkward walking half a step behind Tilly, but it would be awkward to walk beside her, too, somehow. They reach the turbolift and stand side by side as the doors slide shut with a hiss. And Michael stares dead ahead, because she know, she  _ knows _ that her eyes are too full of a feeling that is, strictly speaking, an ocean beyond the friendship they have shared in the past.

Michael learned a lot about herself in the year between finding herself in the future and getting that call on her communicator. She learned that she is allowed to prioritize herself over her duty. That she is more than what she can do for her friends. She cried herself to sleep more nights than she could keep track of, missed her crew, missed Ash. And for some reason, more and more, the voice in her head that slowly resolved itself...was Sylvia Tilly. 

She brought it up to Book one morning. She’d said,  _ I know I need to let them go. My crew, I mean. But there was someone, someone who I can’t seem to put to rest. _

Book had cocked an eyebrow, and looked at her in a knowing way that made her cheeks go hot. He said,  _ your lover? _

And Michael had blanched.  _ No! It’s—I really have moved on from him. It’s...my roommate, actually. My best friend, I think. _

And Book’s kind eyes had been almost too much, and Michael had to look away, stare into her synthesized coffee.  _ Maybe you should think about why that is, Michael.  _ And he’d moved on to where they were heading that morning.

And so Michael had reflected, and remembered, and reflected some more, and all of it came down to this: without knowing how, or when, her feelings for Tilly had morphed into something different than what they had been when she’d last checked.

But she’d  _ resigned  _ herself to never seeing Tilly, the apparent object of her affections, ever again. And now, with Tilly right beside her, she has absolutely no idea how to act.

The turbolift arrives and the doors  _ whoosh _ open and Michael takes half a step, halts, and then gestures at Tilly, only for Tilly to gesture back and say, “After you!” forcing Michael to walk down the hall to their room.

She comes to a halt in front of the door, and stares at it for a long moment. Long enough that Tilly finally punches in the code herself. “Um. Here it is! Home sweet home—I mean, I guess it’s not  _ your— _ you know what I mean,” Tilly says in a rush.

Michael takes a step into the room and stops, transfixed.

It’s like stepping into a time capsule, she thinks. A memory time capsule, of their room when she’d left it. But of course it’s only been mere days for Tilly. On the right is Tilly’s half, full of memories from home, things she’s picked up since joining Discovery.

On the other half of the room, a neatly made bed with a hardcover case under it, containing a telescope. No knicknacks line the shelves. She thinks she’s ready to change that.

Tilly steps in and plops down on her bed, the door sliding shut behind her. She smiles nervously. “You don’t exactly have a lot of things, but, uh, your clothes are all still in the dresser.”

Michael nods, gratefully, and goes to her dresser to pull out a towel and her sleeping clothes. “I’m going to get ready for bed,” she says, because she can’t think of anything else to say.

“Of course! I’ll, uh, take the shower after you?”

Michael nods, and walks into their bathroom and shuts the door.

And then she leans back against it and closes her eyes and exhales deeply, which is a mistake because when she inhales, she realizes that the whole bathroom smells achingly like her roommate, like the hair product she uses, and the bodywash, and Michael had never thought very much to put a finger to Tilly’s scent until she realized she missed it. 

The sonic shower is soothing, and she doesn’t bother to wash her hair with real water tonight, leaving it in a knot on top of her head. It can wait for tomorrow when she has more time to devote to it. And she is still thinking about Tilly. And she is still thinking about Tilly. And she is—

Her timer goes off, the one she’d set in case she spaced out in the shower, and she gets out and dresses in her night clothes and smoothes lotion onto her skin. When she opens the door, Tilly is sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading on her datapad. She glances up when Michael enters, and quickly pops to her feet, towel in hand.

Michael collapses into her bed without even lifting the covers as she hears Tilly turn on the shower, and closes her eyes.

Her bed feels cold, and too empty, which is ridiculous since she’s been sleeping in her own room by herself for a year. And her mind is restless, despite the exhaustion tugging at her consciousness. She wishes she felt at home, and she  _ doesn’t _ , and she hates that she doesn’t.

The door slides open and Michael hears Tilly pad out, accompanied by a waft of humid air that smells like her. Michael keeps her eyes shut as she hears her dress for bed. She  _ knows _ she could have done the same, and they certainly hadn’t been particularly concerned about modesty before. A starship is not exactly a private place, after all. But Michael is unsure if she will be able to return to that kind of friendly camaraderie now, and doesn’t want to tempt herself. So she stays on her bed, ramrod straight on her back, as she listens to Tilly get into bed.

And then, only then, does Michael open her eyes to stare at the ceiling, sleep so far away it might as well be imaginary.

Tilly makes various shuffling, rearranging noises every once in a while, and still Michael is wide awake, wrestling with the gut-wrenching longing in her stomach.

She turns over to lie on her side facing the room.

And finds Tilly looking at her with sleep-heavy eyes that go wide when she’s caught.

Michael’s heart clenches violently at how beautiful Sylvia Tilly is. The soft curve of her cheek, the unruliness of her hair gathered into a loose bun high on her head, the slight part in her pink lips. Michael, who has spent a year conjuring up this face from memory, the details becoming uncertain as she became unsure of whether she was remembering a perfect copy or only a memory-distorted facsimile, is spellbound. And she has never felt so alone in her bed on her side of the room. She’s drawn to Sylvia, she has been since they met, but it is only now that Michael realizes that the biggest feeling that her best friend instills in her...is  _ home _ .

She swings her legs off the bed to sit upright, and stares at her knees, hands clenched on the edge of the mattress. And oh by Surak she  _ wants _ . Wants the comfort of another human being, after this day—after this  _ year _ —but mostly, the thing she most desperately wants is—

She is working on saying what she wants.

She says, haltingly, “Tilly. Sylvia. Would you mind if I—” She exhales measuredly, takes another breath. “I don’t want to be alone. Could I sleep with you tonight?”

And only after she has finished does she look at Sylvia, who has propped herself up on one elbow and is looking at Michael with soft eyes. “Of course,” she says, and scoots to the far side of her bed.

The space between their two beds feels very wide, but Michael crosses it, and gets under the blanket next to Sylvia, so they are lying side by side, both staring at the ceiling. After a minute, Sylvia says, “Not that I’m complaining, I’m not, but it might be more comfortable for both of us—if it’s okay with you, obviously,” and turns on her side, gesturing for Michael to do the same.

Michael looks at her for a moment, and nods. “Yeah,” she says, and turns too, fitting herself into the curve of Sylvia’s body, and finds herself practically being spooned by her, except that Sylvia is carefully maintaining several inches of space, so although this is better, it’s still not  _ enough _ to fill that empty feeling inside Michael.

She glances over her shoulder. “I’m sorry but would you...hold me?”

Sylvia is looking at her with an unfathomable expression, but she nods and scoots closer, pressing the length of her body against Michael’s back and her legs, and putting one arm at Michael’s waist, and Michael closes her eyes and allows herself to relax into it, to finally let the tension she’s been holding inside herself go. Sylvia nestles her head right behind Michael, face pressed into her hair, and Michael could cry with how held she feels.

Slowly, Michael’s thoughts quiet, and she slips into sleep.

* * *

Michael wakes up in stages. The first thing she is aware of, is how...calm she feels. Peaceful, almost, an emotion that she has not had a lot of experience with in her life. The second thing is that she is nestled up with Sylvia, who is warm and smells good. The third is that Sylvia’s face is pressed into Michael, and specifically, her lips are pressed to the nape of Michael’s neck.

As that third thing filters through her fog of sleepiness, Michael first tenses, and then forces herself to relax. Sylvia is still asleep, of course, and they’re spooning so it’s only natural that various parts of her body would be touching various parts of Michael’s body. But the feel of it is like a live wire, buzzing inside her, and right now she is utterly failing to compartmentalize the part of her brain that is quite desperately in love with Sylvia Tilly.

She gets a jolt in her stomach as she realizes that she’s never let herself think those exact words.  _ In love with _ . But she’s known for a while now, deep down.

And because despite her best efforts Michael is still a sucker for punishment, she lets her eyes flutter closed, and pretends that this is real, instead of a friend just doing her best to support her friend.

She drifts off again, not fully asleep but not completely awake either.

Michael isn’t sure how long it's been when she feels Sylvia shift behind her, inhale, and tighten her hold at Michael’s waist. And it is so exactly what Michael wants, and she is still more than half asleep, and that is why it feels so easy to adjust her arm over Sylvia’s and weave their fingers together and hold Sylvia’s arm closer to her stomach.

Her breath catches when she realizes what she’s done, and she clears her throat. “Is this okay?” she whispers, too afraid to speak louder in case it frightens Sylvia off.

Sylvia nods into her braids. Minutes slip by, in which Michael’s thoughts become increasingly centered on the fact that Sylvia’s lips are still pressed against her skin, before Sylvia murmurs, “Michael…”

Michael prepares herself for the inevitable. Sylvia is going to ask her to go back to her own bed, or say this can never happen again, or—

Sylvia props herself up on one elbow and just... _ looks _ at her. When Michael turns her head to meet her gaze, she finds Sylvia with the hint of a smile playing around her mouth, gaze heavy on Michael’s skin.

Michael shifts to lie on her back. “Hey,” she says quietly.

Sylvia blushes bright red and ducks her head, breaking their gaze, but then makes eye contact again. “Hi, um, sorry, I hope I didn’t like, invade your personal space too much or something, you seemed like you wanted me to last night but I don’t want to presume and—”

“Tilly,” Michael says, “Sylvia, it’s okay.”

At that, Sylvia blushes even brighter, and Michael races to think of when the last time she called Sylvia by her first name, before last night. It’s rare, she finds in her memories, and she decides she very much would like to change that.

She reaches up to brush a curl behind Sylvia’s ear, and she can feel the softness in her own eyes, nor can she prevent her smile. She asks, softly, hesitantly, “Can I kiss you?”

Sylvia’s lips part a fraction. “Yes,” she breathes, and then she is leaning down to kiss Michael, and the feeling of rightness is overwhelming. Tilly’s lips are soft, and part almost instantly, and Michael responds in kind, and it is a fairly long kiss, as first kisses go, and when Sylvia pulls away Michael chases after her for a moment before letting her head fall back on the pillow.

Sylvia looks at her with half-lidded eyes and says softly, “Wow.”

Michael grins. “Wow yourself,” she says.

Watching the slowly growing smile form on Sylvia’s face is like watching the sun rise, Michael thinks somewhat deliriously, because she has had dreams that went like this and somehow none of them managed to encapsulate the full potency that is Sylvia Tilly.

“I’ve wanted to do that for...a  _ long _ time,” Sylvia admits, eyes flicking away from Michael.

Michael drinks her in, and her eyes feel watery. She says, “You were right, before. I did let everyone go. But somehow I couldn’t let go of  _ you.”  _ She smoothes her hand up Sylvia’s arm, still draped at her waist, to her shoulder and to the back of her neck, and tugs ever so gently.

Sylvia follows, and it is the easiest thing in the world to bring their lips together again, and Michael thinks that none of them have a home anymore, Earth, or anywhere else. None of them have a home except the one they build for themselves, together. And then she doesn’t think anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, drop a kudo/comment if you enjoyed it! I am very soft for these two.


End file.
